How is advocacy defined, conceptualised and implemented within nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions? A protocol for a systematic review of the evidence
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Aim
To explore how advocacy has been defined, conceptualised and implemented within nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions. A secondary aim is to characterize barriers and facilitators to advocacy in clinical practice.
Methods
A systematic search of five bibliographic databases has been undertaken to identify primary qualitative and quantitative research relating to advocacy in nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions. Results from searches are being screened blinded and in duplicate. Given that we anticipate retrieving heterogenous studies, eligible studies will be synthesised according to best practice set out in a range of guidelines.
Data Sources
CINAHL (via EBSCOHost), EMBASE (via Ovid), MEDLINE (via Ovid), PsycINFO (via EBSCOHost), Global Health (via EBSCOHost) have been searched.
Results
Searches have been completed, n=45,617 studies were retrieved which was reduced to n=25,900 studies following deduplication. Screening, which is being performed blinded and in duplicate within the web platform Rayyan, is ongoing.
Conclusions
As a result of this robust review, we anticipate generating a comprehensive report of advocacy that we have hitherto identified as being lacking. Best practice principles are being employed ensuring the eventual output is robust, transparent and useful to the clinicians likely to be accessing this information.
No Patient or Public Contribution
Implications for the profession and/or patient care
In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of advocacy; nurses, midwives and allied health professionals would have to obtain and consult a number of systematic reviews. This all-encompassing review will ensure that a comprehensive report that synthesizes modern data and covers the full-spectrum of advocacy domains and its implications is available.
Impact
The broad reach and ambitious nature of this review will ensure it has a significant impact. Advocacy is practiced by most healthcare staff on daily basis, however many are not aware of this and those with aspirations to engage more fully as an advocate within their role do not have a reliable and comprehensive report which would equip them with relevant knowledge relating to advocacy.
Protocol Registration
This review was registered on PROSPERO (CRD420250640543)
Key points
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Advocacy is an important component of nursing, midwifery and allied health professional practice, however the evidence has not recently been synthesised.
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This review will update and expand the scope of previous reviews, to generate a comprehensive update of advocacy.
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Clinicians with an interest in advocacy will be able to obtain a robust and up to date overview of advocacy, which is likely to have changed recently in view of the spread of misinformation and artificial intelligence.
Registration
This review was registered on PROSPERO (CRD420250640543)
